Seoul City Continues to Operate the “Employment Trail”

The hashtag associated with Seoul this year is “Job”

The last week of every month, embark on your journey to find a job! The last week of every month is the “Employment Trail Week.”

The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced its operation of the “Employment Trail” which involves visiting workplaces of the citizens and engaging participation of all the citizens through the cooperation with companies, universities, and labor groups.

The “Employment Trail” which was launched last year identified employment problems at the workplaces for a month and finds the solutions by shaping policies of the Seoul government. This year, the city government aims to designate the last week of every month as the “Employment Trail Week” to make an all-out effort to create jobs and produce tangible results.

The “Employment Trail” is expected to take place from March to June in the first half of this year and from September to November in the second half. The specific agenda of each month includes democratizing the economy and valuing labor in April, creating jobs for youths in May, fostering Seoul-type promising industries in June, creating social economic jobs in September, boosting foreign and domestic investment in October, and creating jobs for the vulnerable groups in November.

The first place where this project starts will be a conference during which the presidents of the five universities (Konkuk, Sangmyung, Sungshin Women’s, Sookmyung Women’s, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies) will gather to find ways to tackle youth unemployment, foster start-ups and employment for youths together with the city government. The city government and the universities promise to make concerted efforts to solve youth unemployment at this meeting.

This year, the city government will hold events more than once a week and 100 times a year. During the events the presidents of universities and CEOs gather and seek ways to solve youth unemployment. Additionally, the Seoul government is planning to operate a consultative group which consists of company leaders, business circles, and local communities all year around.

Dealing with youth unemployment as the top priority, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced the “2016 Comprehensive Plan to Create Jobs for Youths.”

The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced the “2016 Seoul Comprehensive Plan to Create Jobs for Youths” on the 25th in order to address youth unemployment as the most urgent issue because one out of three youths is technically jobless. This plan focuses on the voices of young people to offer practical help to them and improve job quality.

The Seoul government will set up 300 “Job Cafés,” which will provide a venue to make preparations for employment and offers information on the job market around the city by 2020.

“Job Café” will have study rooms, information desks, and other spaces to prepare for finding jobs and expert counselors will provide various services including the help for youths to find jobs, career counseling, resume editing, and mentoring for a job interview.

Particularly, to reduce job interview expenses, which on average costs 104,900 won, “Job Café” will also provide practical help such as suit rental services, make-up and hair services, and photo shoot services.

Job Cafés” will be set up at the sites which are readily accessible to the citizens such as Citizens Hall on the second basement level of the City Hall building, the areas surrounded by universities and private institutes, local cafes, and community centers. Also, the city government will use the existing private facilities.

The city government will integrate and operate job call center. In May, it will launch a call center (☎1588-9142) and in January, it will be linked to Dasan Call Center (☎120), and in July, they will be integrated into Iljari (☎142). From April, the current counseling call centers which operate until six o’clock will extend their office hours until ten o’clock, and by June an integrated website and application which offer information on the job market will be set up.

In addition, the Seoul government will foster 1,000 Seoul-type hidden champions to help 10,000 youths to find quality jobs.

The city government will nurture 1,000 small giants by assessing their rate of regular employees, wage, benefits, and growth potential and connect them with young job seeks. It will also provide various supports to the small giants, such as PR, research on manpower demand, distribution marketing, incentives for employment, thereby boosting the labor market.

③ Rendering full support for youth employment, and boosting start-ups and social economy by expanding the welfare system

Expansion of public services will create 1,600 jobs at national public nurseries and daycare center, and 1,890 jobs though Youth New Deal and University Students Internship programs.

That is not all. Seoul City also has a plan to create 6,000 jobs by nurturing 1,000 social economic companies.

It will make efforts to help youths begin their own business. For example, the “Challenge 1,000 Program” which will give support to young future entrepreneurs will lead to the creation of 3000 jobs, and the city government will increase the number of “Challenge Rooms” from 250 up to 390 within the year to secure spaces for start-ups.

④ Increasing the number of “Centers for Protection of the Rights for Young Part-timers” up to 25

To protect youths against unfavorable treatment at their first job, the number of “Centers for Protection of the Rights for Young Part-timers” which has been set up in four different labor centers will have increased up to 25 by 2020.

From May, the city government will operate real time counseling services via KakaoTalk, a free messenger app, counseling tour around the districts including university areas where young part-timers are concentrated and night watch centers.

Moreover, Seoul City will offer practical help such as counseling services for the violation of rights in association with citizen labor ombudsman, certified labor attorneys, and lawyers. Also the city government will provide services regarding lawsuits or petitions, administrative trials, and civil suits by proxy. The number of “Youth Rights Patrol” also will increase from 5 to 100.

Lastly, Seoul City will create “Seoul-type Job Model” in pursuit of both quantity and quality. It is important not only to create many jobs, but also to improve the quality of jobs so that youths can work under satisfying conditions for a long time.

The Seoul government will terminate the practice of “Turing irregular workers into regular worker in the public sector,” which has been implemented since 2013, by 2017 (7,296 workers) and make efforts to improve the working environment and ensure the better treatment. Furthermore, the government will expand the practice into the private sector.

The “Seoul-type Living Wage System” which Seoul Metropolitan Government and government-funded institutions are entitled to receive will be applied to contract workers in the public sector and will create and implement the “Seoul-type Working Hour Curtail Plan” within this year. To this end, the city government will select two city government-funded institutions and test run the “Seoul-type Working Hour Curtail Institution.”

The city government will continue to develop support policies for the underprivileged workers at their workplaces. For this year, Seoul City plans to build rest areas in the Gangnam area to improve the welfare of workers of delivery services or designated drivers for hire, and annually selects two or three types of jobs which demand long working hours with low pay and to render full support to them.

Seoul, the City for Jobs, formulating policies providing practical benefits to the citizens

Announcing the plan for youth employment, the Seoul government will make continued efforts to listen to the voices of the citizens and also form a plan for the citizens from every walk of life including women, baby boomers, and the elderly people within a short period of time.

To that end, as a series of the “Employment Trail,” the city government will annually hold 14 rounds of conferences during which youths, experts from various fields and other groups gather and share their ideas for job creation and start-ups. It will also collect suggestions regarding jobs via websites, and SNS and it will reflect useful ideas when making policies.

“The top priority of the Seoul Metropolitan Government is job creation!” Seoul City will make an all-out effort to become the “City for Jobs,” where anyone who wants to work can work.